Daniel Harmon

On Tuesday, I schlepped to Minneapolis to attend Ron Paul’s Rally for the Republic. Wow! What a shindig! The Target Center was bursting with the energy of over 10,000 passionate patriots. And these people weren’t straight-down-the-line republicans. Anything but, in fact. I’ve never seen such an eclectic mix of politically active people gathered under one roof to support a common cause. You literally had everybody: down-to-earth farmers and spiffy, self-made entrepreneurs; the hardcore religious right and liberal, anti-war hippies; craggy, old seniors and young, counter-culture students; well-educated intellectuals and no-nonsense rural folk; bearded, tattoo-covered bikers and body-pierced bohemians; hunters, homemakers, republicans, democrats, independents, libertarians, whites, blacks, Asians, Arabs, Indians, Latinos—and everything in between. If I hadn’t already been familiar with the “revolution” culture, I would’ve never guessed that everyone was there to support the same guy, a simple doctor and congressman that embodies a singular principle: liberty. For me, seeing the diversity of supporters reinforced Paul’s oft-repeated explanation of his following: freedom is popular and it brings people together.

Of course, everyone subscribes to Paul’s strict constitutional philosophy in varying degrees. But he doesn’t care that you don’t believe 100% in some 30-point program. He just says it as he sees it and lets you buy into whatever you want. And precisely because of that, these people see him as a principled political leader, a maverick fighting for the freedom that America now largely takes for granted.

Now, I have to mention one little experience that I think says a lot about the phenomenon of the revolution movement. During Paul’s speech, a young college girl, sporting a stud the size of a small marble pierced in between her chin and bottom lip, came and stood in the row in front of me. As Paul, a 73-year-old, baggy-eyed, white-haired man, humbly elaborated on things like the vices of the Patriot Act and the virtues of sound money, this slightly rebellious-looking girl was screaming at the top of her lungs “I love you, Ron Paul!” Crazy, eh? Just one more sign that this movement is for real. It’s not going away. The appeal of liberty is too broad and its momentum is too great. And this is just the beginning.